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Buffy the Vampire Slayer (& associated TV series) and The Cabin in the Woods could at first glance easily be in the same universe. In particular the organization that runs the Cabin is very reminiscent of 'The Initiative' from Buffy Season 4.

I did not see anything that would explicitly link the two, but is there anything from The Cabin in the Woods which would exclude it from being in the Buffyverse?

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    I saw the organization as much more "Wolfram and Hart" than "The Initiative".
    – user6473
    May 22, 2012 at 17:52
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    My guess is no. Kaz and Fran Kuzui were involved in the original Buffy movie and hold character rights to Buffy. Because of these rights, they received Executive Producer credit on the Buffy and Angel TV series without having contributing anything to the television shows. I doubt Whedon would want to give them any additional money/credit for doing nothing.
    – BennyMcBenBen
    May 30, 2012 at 11:17
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    If it is in the Buffyverse, it’s a bit of a coincidence that a woman who looks exactly like Fred works there.
    – Paul D. Waite
    Dec 29, 2013 at 19:17
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    @PaulD.Waite - that is an excellent observation (never watched Angel personally, so didn't see that).
    – iandotkelly
    Dec 29, 2013 at 19:55
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    Tom Lenk is also crossed over between Buffy and Cabin in the Woods as Andrew (Buffy) and Ronald (CitW).
    – phantom42
    Feb 21, 2014 at 18:26

8 Answers 8

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This is based slightly on @Nick's answer, but I wanted to format one that specifically called out why and also to answer it in a less spoiler fasion.

They cannot be the same universe.

This is because at the end of the Cabin in the Woods:

Dana and Marty accept that it might be better for another species to take humanity's place if this is the price of its continued existence. They share a final joint as an Ancient One finally stirs, destroying the Facility.

However, we know that the Buffyverse:

Exists in the 23rd century due to the in canon character of Melaka Fray

Therefore:

Humanity, if not the entire world, of the Cabinverse, is eliminated around the year 2012. In the Buffyverse, it clearly lasts much longer than that.

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    Excellent point. Great job.
    – Marcin
    Feb 23, 2014 at 22:20
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    This is good logic: however, CitW doesn't neccesarily indicate that The Ancient One is successful in destroying the world: it could have been thwarted somehow in the attempt! (although the inference is definitely that the world will be destroyed, its not conclusive)
    – John Smith Optional
    Apr 29, 2014 at 0:34
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    While not conclusive, there is a strong indication to that end with nothing really to contradict it. Until there is a CitW 2, it seems a safe assumption even if it is an assumption.
    – joshbirk
    Apr 30, 2014 at 15:31
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The main inconsistency is that the Initiative appears to have proceeded largely from a state of ignorance about the supernatural world, and been an attempt by (some part of) the US government to acquire more information about it.

By contrast the unnamed organisation in The Cabin in the Woods (a) has official links with the military; and (b) clearly has a sophisticated appreciation of the supernatural.

Another aspect that sits ill with the Buffyverse setting is that in the Buffyverse, young people are brutally murdered all the time. It would probably be unnecessary to set up elaborate settings like the cabin, given that the organisation could simply set something up in a hellmouth area.

A third aspect, related to the last, is that the point of the organisation, and its rituals, is to keep humanity safe. Part of the mission clearly involves keeping contained huge numbers of monsters. In the Buffyverse, monsters are not contained at all.

Finally, there are no especial reasons to think that they are connected - neither work refers to the other, even indirectly.

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    For all we know, some of those other countries (or the cabin itself!) could have actually been on a Hellmouth.
    – Ian Pugsley
    Apr 23, 2012 at 13:12
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    First, the cabin setup doesn't imply anything about the lack of existence of a Hellmouth, regardless of evidence. Second, the ritual was specific - each of the five had to be present. Setting up on a Hellmouth and hoping the people who die nearby happen to be the right kinds for the ritual seems like a really great way to get the world destroyed. Third, the organization in CitW is likely outside the US gov't - there's some international aspect to it. So the limited exposure you see in Buffy to what the US gov't knows of the supernatural likely doesn't imply anything here either.
    – Ian Pugsley
    Apr 23, 2012 at 14:12
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    @iandotkelly At the beginning, they specifically refer to the new security guy being from the military, and having been "prepped" for his assignment. So, yes, they are connected.
    – Marcin
    Apr 23, 2012 at 15:25
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    Cool - good catch.
    – iandotkelly
    Apr 23, 2012 at 15:28
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    Good answer; I see no reason to think this movie was connected to the Buffyverse in any way. I'm not sure why people would think otherwise.
    – peacedog
    Apr 23, 2012 at 20:40
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In the buffyverse Buffy always saves the world. In the cabin in the woods, the world ends. Therefore its not the buffyverse. If you saw a lone figure leaping at the emerging old one in the final scene then maybe!

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    I can't fault your logic, even if your answer is pure hokum.
    – Valorum
    Feb 21, 2014 at 18:37
  • Well I think you are on the right track. If contemporary, the world of Cabin in the Woods ends in or around the year 2012. However, in Fray we see the world still exists in the Buffyverse through the 23rd century. So, not the same universe. Side note: this thread is a bit spoilerish.
    – joshbirk
    Feb 21, 2014 at 21:27
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It's not the same.

1) If Wolfram and Hart had a sacrificial pit for kids to keep the world alive, Angel would know, and it would have been an issue, because he has a soul, but Angel never came to interfere.

2) Vengence demons, and similar demons, are free roaming multi-dimensional entities in the Buffyverse who have an investment in having people to serve, and people to torture. The Ancients destroying the world doesn't work for them, and they would attempt to interfere, probably if all else fails, involving Buffy and Willow, because Buffy is formed as the original demon repression device. Stopping the ancients would be her job, and the demons who like having people around to play with would help her. There was no sign of that, but plenty of opportunity.

3) The arrangement with the ancient ones would have been known by other mystical communities in the BuffyVerse, like the witches that trained Willow, and the old lady with the Glottal Stop. The latter is part of a group who accurately predicted millenia before everything necessary to stop a problem so dire they had to predict it millenia ago and prepare for that day over all that time. They wouldn't have missed something like the Ancients, nor neglected the danger.

4) Willow, having gone fully dark, and then in recovery, linking to the entire earth and its living systems, would have percieved and understood the existence and arrangements for the great evil. In the BuffyVerse, the great evil is the first evil. If the Ancients existed in the Buffyverse, they were under the first evil. The first evil did not arrange for the ancients to come bitch slap Buffy, she used a wingman and a bunch of old blue vampires. If the ancient's pit existed in the BuffyVerse, the first would have attracted the slayers to the cabin and used them to feed the ancients, or lured them there to let them stop the organization, resulting in the end of the world. Season 7 would have ended badly.

Nope, not the same.

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I think the fact there is no direct/indirect link is more a ploy to make us Buffy fans speculate. I for one would LOVE to believe it is in the Buffyverse and therefore do. I think maybe some time in the future, where the Initiative has had time to expand and grow. Also, if there was a link, would that not isolate the people that haven't watched Buffy? Leave it to our imaginations I say!

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I think it could be Wolfram &Hart just because Whedon obviously loved the idea of them existing, and hey, look at it like this: the apocalypse in the Buffyverse always seemed contained in some weird "pocket area/dimension" where the outside "real" world wasn't AS affected. Or some shit like that. There was just a lot of "coincedences" that are there with a wink and a nod.

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My evidence is speculation, but here goes...

  1. The Ancient Ones are described the same way The Old Ones are in the Buffyverse. They have the same origins and the same function. In the comics you see them and they are roughly to scale with the hand in Cabin.

  2. The rules of magic/tech are consistent. Any of the monsters in Cabin could've existed in the Buffyverse and vice versa. In The Cabin they state that the horrors they use are real. If the writers wanted Cabin to exist in a different universe, this would be where they could draw the line.

The unnamed corporation is Wolfram and Hart, not The Initiative, because at the beginning it is stated that they are not in the military. Wolfram and Hart has the international capabilities, the magic/tech know-how and the motive. In Angel, one of the Old Ones says that "The wolf, the ram and the hart" were weak when the Old Ones were in power. They of all organizations would want to keep the Ancient Ones at Bay and torture humans for their amusement. It's a win/win for them.

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I pretty much assumed the Cabin is in the Buffyverse. Apart from a few actors playing different characters, I see no evidence to the contrary. What's more, they made it clear that vampires exist in this world [on the betting board], but then just as consciously don't show us any vampires. If they had shown the vampires, wouldn't they have had to have made a direct Buffy reference?

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    But there is no evidence to suggest Cabin is in the Buffyverse either. Vampires are not something exclusive to the Buffyverse, and the fact that Buffyverse has vampires is not itself remarkable. They are all over genere fiction.
    – peacedog
    Apr 23, 2012 at 20:39
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    The absence of a thing doesn't prove its opposite. By the same token, you could argue that it takes place inside a holodeck or is part of the Matrix.
    – Valorum
    Feb 21, 2014 at 18:38

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